


Coulson's Nightmare Returns

by starwolf_oakley



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Phil Coulson Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 19:09:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13933419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starwolf_oakley/pseuds/starwolf_oakley
Summary: The nightmare comes back. Because why wouldn't it?  Phil Coulson still has his conscience, right?  Right?





	Coulson's Nightmare Returns

In retrospect, Coulson wasn’t surprised the Fear Dimension manifested a vision of Hive in his blue-tentacle form. Why would it? It was a Fear Dimension, not a You’re Not Going to Tell Daisy About This Dimension. She’d go back to living in her van if Coulson told her.

As he laid his head on the pillow, he wondered what form the dream would take this time. And it would come back. Even the “Borrowed Time” situation he was in now, it would come back. It didn’t in the Framework, the times he sort-of remembered dreaming in the Framework. But it would. A little thing like impending death and Daisy maybe destroying the world wouldn’t stop the nightmare.

Would he be back on Maveth? In Ward D, on the wrong side of the force field? Once he was even "back" in Tahiti. 

Coulson didn’t always see him say it, but he’d always say it. It would be the only thing he’d say, at first. A few times, there would be a lead up to it. “What did you think would happen? How could you act surprised? You taunted a desperate, suicidal man and threw him to the wolves. Because you thought it was funny.” 

“You deserved it.” It was the only defense Coulson could think to say, despite hundreds of others that might come to mind. And it never sounded right. Like the weak comeback of an angry child. The killer of Eric Koenig and Virginia Hand had to be punished. But there’s punishment and then there’s torture, isn’t there? The torture that lasted until Coulson crushed his chest with his cybernetic hand. That act punished the killer of Rosalind Price. And it didn’t end there. Because, somehow, it never ends. 

And Grant Ward would say it in a conversational tone of voice on the right side of Ward D's force field. Or shout it. Or scream it from a far distance, the words echoing across Maveth. And that one time, in Tahiti, he whispered it right in Coulson’s ear while serving him an umbrella drink.

“Garrett made me Hydra but YOU made me a monster.”


End file.
